1. Field of the Invention
There is a need to provide automobile drivers with an opportunity to experience the effect velocity has upon one's ability to control a vehicle during entry into curves and turns. Many sources of research have revealed that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among teenagers, and teenage drivers tend to be at fault for their fatal car crashes more often than older drivers. Speeding over allowable limits, or too fast for road conditions and other high risk behaviors are several of the key causes for this tragic loss of young drivers and passengers. There is a need to reinforce current training programs and to make advanced training and remedial driver education available as part of the means to reduce the crash incidents of the youthful driver. Other research has documented that the largest percentage of single vehicle crashes involving the youthful driver occurs at a curve in the roadway. Being that the leading cause of single vehicle crashes for youthful drivers involves excessive speed while entering a curve, effective learning activities are needed to have the driver experience the importance of establishing speed control prior to entering a curve.
Heretofore the most common method for teaching the consequences that occur when a vehicle's handling dynamics exceed the roadway's traction envelope is to conduct a classroom activity. The principal disadvantage of such classroom training is the absence of a visceral experience. The best audio-visual aids, in supplement to a classroom lecture, cannot give a trainee an emotional experience of what it feels like to lose control of a vehicle when the speed of entry into a curve is one mile per hour faster than the traction envelope necessary for tire adhesion. Only a small percentage of drivers experience, during an educational environment, the effect speed has upon the handling qualities of a motor vehicle. The current state of the art, for those programs that do include hands-on-training, is usually achieved by flooding a large level asphalt-surfaced parking lot, or a dedicated location designed for such training, with water or other friction-reducing materials. The speeds at which these exercises are conducted, to generate a sufficient skid, take place in excess of thirty-live miles per hour. With constant lateral acceleration forces being placed upon the vehicle, there is an excessive amount of stress upon the transmission, rear axle, braking system, tires, and steering system of the vehicle. Therefore, the cost of a dedicated vehicle for the training, the expense of maintaining the training car, the requirements of a large paved area, the need for a flat surface, the resistance from neighbors complaining about the noise of screeching tires, the amount of time to set-up and remove the training exercises, all contribute to make this experience costly and geographically prohibitive to the vast majority of drivers. In particular, the newly licensed and youthful driver is most often not able to receive such training.
2. Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,449,727 discloses a front wheel drive automotive vehicle with pivotable rear wheels having up to a 10 degree caster for the purpose of teaching race car drivers skid control. U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,798 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,594 disclose driver training apparatus for simulating automotive skidding conditions. Both latter patents disclose a frame upon which are attached four castering wheels which are spaced wider than an automotive vehicle. An automotive vehicle is mounted on top of the frame. U.S. Pat. No. 4,700, 798 disclosed that the frame is elevated or lowered by the up or down movement of a hydraulic cylinder to put more or less of the vehicle's tires in contact with the road surface by shifting the load more or less onto the castering wheels. As the frame is elevated the automobile's tires are less in contact with the road surface, therefore simulating a reduced-traction condition. U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,594 discloses a frame, supported by four castering wheels which raise or lower the four wheels of an automobile in relation to the road surface by the tilting of forward and rearward articulating axles upon which the castering wheels are mounted; thereby creating a simulated reduced-traction condition. Neither of the two patents disclose the ability to lock or unlock the swivel action of the caster wheels as means to create a reduced-traction simulated condition in the handling qualities of the vehicle-roadway interaction. Furthermore, none of the cited patents disclose the capability to instantly simulate, within a fraction of a second, the capability to convert the condition that the training vehicle is operating on from an adhesive surface of rolling traction to one of reduced-traction as if the driver suddenly encounters a patch of ice on the roadway surface. A significant disadvantage to these two patents is the high cost of production making it too expensive to be widely adopted in our school systems curriculum for traffic safety education. The massiveness of the apparatus of these patents would reduce the portability of being able to easily and quickly set up activities at a variety of locations in a cost effective manner.
The principle object of this invention is to simulate an automobile being operated in a reduced-traction situation such as that which occurs during excessive speed applications for the condition and configuration of the roadway. Such excessive speed is contributory to vehicular crashes that occur at roadway horizontal curves and complicated during reduced-traction road surface conditions imposed by rain, snow, ice, loose sand and other environmental elements.
Another object of this invention is to teach drivers concepts and skills necessary to recognize the deviation of the vehicle from its longitudinal axis (i.e., it's straight path of travel) early during the commencement of a yaw, enabling drivers to take a corrective steering action before the lateral acceleration exceeds the point of controllability to recover a vehicle's control during a skid situation.
Another object is to provide drivers with opportunites to make risk vs. gain decision as it relates to acceptance of speed and lane position for entering potentially high-risk roadway conditions that occur when the vehicle is cornering.
Still another object is to provide a driver training simulator to give trainees hands-on-experience of how searching techniques affects the control of a vehicle while negotiating a curve or turn.
Yet another object is to provide a driver training simulator to give trainees hands-on-experience of how to recognize the beginning stage of a skidding action and to know how to make corrections to reduce risk.
And another object is to provide a driver training simulator to give trainees hands-on-experience and to be used as a demonstration of how alcohol affects one's driving performance.